James Tabor - The Deep Zone

But Doug and Danny, going to the commissary? The thought just about cracked her professional discipline. She sat back, wrapped one arm around her chest, and shoved the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth.

A few minutes later, someone knocked, very softly, on the flimsy plywood door to her plywood closet of an office. She composed herself, steadied her voice.

“Come in.”

The door opened just wide enough for one of the nurses to poke her head in. A beautiful young black woman from Brooklyn. She remembered that much. But not the nurse’s name. She knew it, but could not remember it, and that was a bad sign. So she just smiled and waited.

“Ma’am, there’s a call for you.” Muffled voice from the Chemturion hood.

“Can you handle it for me, please? I just need a few minutes here to finish up some paperwork.”

“Ah, ma’am, I tried to take a message. But it’s a colonel, ma’am. Says he spoke to you about coming here. Said to get you ASAP.” The nurse’s face contracted around the word “ASAP,” as though she had just tasted something sour.

The fobbit . Damn. She had forgotten all about their conversation yesterday. No, the day before. Or had it been last week? She could not recall. But she did seem to remember that the colonel had said he would arrive on Thursday, which had come and gone. Today was Saturday. What the hell? Well, colonels didn’t make their schedules to suit majors. He was here and had to be dealt with. “All right, I’ll speak with him. Is he inside here someplace?”

“No, ma’am. He’s outside. I don’t think he wants to come in. Even with a suit on.”

“He actually has a suit on? Out there? Okay, no problem. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The beautiful nurse went away, leaving Stilwell’s door ajar. She got up, rubbed her hands over her face in an attempt to scrub away some of the fatigue, and walked to the nurses’ station, where the telephones were located.

“Stilwell.”

“Major, this is Colonel Ribbesh.”

She had forgotten all about him. His voice sounded stiff and formal and distorted by his suit hood. Pissed off because some general ordered him to come out here , she thought. Now he’s going to pass it right on down the line . She wondered why he was wearing a biosafety suit, even though he was outside the unit.

“I had apprised you of my ETA, Major. There were some changes required. Did your staff apprise you?”

“No, Colonel.”

“That’s too bad. I instructed my staff to do so.”

I just bet you did, fobbit. Preemptive strike is called for here .

“Colonel, no disrespect, but I’ve got four more patients to see stat. Can this wait?”

“I’m afraid not. I understand you’ve declined to utilize a Bravo Sierra Lima-dash-Four unit.”

“Correct.”

“I think you should don one ASAP, Major. I know you’re aware that NBC regulations specifically state that all medical personnel in Level Four quarantine conditions shall be required to utilize Bravo Sierra Lima-dash-Four units at all times when in the presence of pathogens.”

“Thanks for your concern, Colonel, but no. Now I have to—”

“Major Stilwell, that wasn’t a request.” Colonel Ribbesh sounded like a teacher she’d had in seventh grade, a little man bitter as brine whose life purpose, it seemed, had been to make other people suffer. “It was an order. From a superior officer.”

She took a deep breath, fought her temper back down. “Colonel. These boys fight every day without magic suits. I can’t take care of them in one. And I’m sure you’re aware of Army General Order Seventeen, Section Four, Part b, which states that in situations pertaining to the health and welfare of military personnel, medical authority shall prevail over all other considerations. I have to go.”

Let it go right there , she told herself, but then it just came bubbling out. “See, a soldier just died and I need to pronounce his death to make his sure his family becomes eligible for what meager benefits the Army sees fit to pay parents for their dead enlisted-men sons, because if one bit of paperwork, just one tiny piece, is missing, well, they can kiss those benefits goodbye. But thank you for your concern.”

Stilwell hung up, shook her head. There was, of course, something else.

What’s your name, Sergeant?

Daniel, ma’am. Wyman .

Suppose one of these boys had been her Danny and it was another doctor? What would she expect of that one? The answer was obvious—to her, at least. The others still in here all wore the suits. They were volunteers, sergeants and corporals, nurses and lab techs and a couple of physician’s assistants who’d stayed to help, and she was glad they were protected. But for her, not being able to speak directly to these sick kids, to see them and touch them and hear their voices undistorted, was unthinkable.

Not long after Daniel Wyman died, Stilwell herself took up residence in the quarantined hospital, catnapping when she could on a cot, subsisting mostly on coffee and the microwavable meals normally given only to patients. She had been working for more than fifty hours now without really sleeping, and was beginning to feel the red, gritty edge of serious fatigue.

She had encountered that kind of exhaustion before, after medical school when she was interning and then doing her residency. There were times in those days when she had worked ninety hours straight. She was younger then, but she was not old now and knew she still had reserves of energy not yet tapped. She could keep going for quite a while.

But what then? she asked herself, pouring more thick, black coffee from the Bunn at the nurses’ station. And what was quite a while, anyway? She couldn’t go on forever, and she knew that full well. They could bring other Army doctors, but they would be strangers to the boys in the wards and, working in the space suits, would only make the soldiers feel even more diseased and alone, like dying lepers.

Well, she couldn’t do anything about that. But she could keep administering colistin, as long as the supplies kept coming in, and she could provide pain relief, and she could talk to them and hold their hands and reassure them.

And what about you, Dr. Stilwell? Do you really think you’ve got some kind of miraculous immunity to this thing?

I haven’t caught it yet, now have I?

It’s just a matter of time. You know that .

I don’t know any such thing. I think if I were going to get it, I would have by now .

Get real. It’s just taking longer because you’re a woman and women have stronger immune systems than men. That was one of the first things you learned in the infectious disease courses. Remember how all the women med students in the classes made faces and thumbed their noses at the men?

Maybe. Maybe not. But you know what? It doesn’t really matter. Does it?

No. It doesn’t. What matters is them. And no goddamned fobbit is going to get between me and those soldiers .

Roger that, Major .

BARNARD NEVER SLEPT WELL IN THE MOTEL-LIKE ROOMS THAT were now standard issue in all agencies having anything to do with homeland security. Given his seniority, his was comfortable enough—double bed, private bath, color-chip hues—but it wasn’t home and there was no Lucianne, slim and warm, beside him.

He showered, shaved, put on fresh clothes, had coffee, and headed downstairs to Delta 17. Lew Casey had called earlier that morning with guardedly good news. Too complicated to explain on the phone, he’d said; Barnard should come down to see for himself.